“Ah,” murmured Philip Holt vaguely, “but do you feel sure that a boarding school is the best place for the girl? She is so unruly, so untruthful! I fear that she would give you a great deal of trouble and responsibility unless she were placed under greater restraint. I have wondered for some time what should be done for the child. She has caused a lot of mischief among the children on the street in her tenement section. It seems to me that she ought to be sent to some kind of an institution where she would be more closely watched—an asylum or home for incorrigible children.”
Mrs. Curtis looked worried and bit her lips. “That is rather hard on the child, isn’t it? Still, I could not undertake to be responsible for Tania’s good behavior at school. She seems very hard to control. I will watch her more closely, and, if she shows more signs of untruthfulness, I shall have to consider your suggestion. However, I will talk the matter over with Madge. I wish you would walk down to the houseboat for me and invite the girls to come up to the hotel for luncheon. I hope they are not off somewhere with Captain Jules. He seems to claim the greater share of their attention lately.”
Philip Holt walked off, very well pleased with his interview. He had conveyed to Mrs. Curtis precisely the impression he had intended to convey.
Ever since his arrival at Cape May Philip Holt had wished to see little Tania alone. He had warned the child that she was not to behave as though she had ever seen him before, yet he was still afraid that she might make a confidante of Madge. He needed to make his threat to her more terrifying. He decided to find her and intimidate her so thoroughly that she would not dare betray her previous acquaintance with him.
There was but one person in the world of whom the queer, elf-like Tania was afraid. That person was Philip Holt! She had feared him since the day of her own mother’s death, and the very thought of him was enough to fill her childish soul with terror.
Tania was playing alone on the sands near that houseboat at the time Mrs. Curtis and Philip Holt were discussing her future. Madge and Miss Jenny Ann were inside the houseboat, within calling distance of Tania, but not where they could see her. The little girl had just built a house of shining pebbles and was gazing at it with a pleased smile when she heard a step near her on the sand. Tania stared up at Philip’s thin, blonde face in terror-stricken silence.
“Tania,” the young man asked harshly, “have you told any one down here that you have ever seen or known me before?”
Tania shook her head mutely.
“Remember, if you do, I am going to have you shut up in a big house with iron bars at the windows where you can never go out or see your friends any more,” Philip Holt went on, keeping his voice lowered to a whisper.
Slowly Tania’s black eyes dropped. She tried to be brave and to pretend that she did not care, but the loss of her freedom was the one thing that Tania feared with all her soul. If she were shut up somewhere, how could she ever talk to her fairies, or see the blue sky that she so loved? And now, to be parted from the girls forever was too dreadful! Indeed, she would not dare to tell what she knew. Philip Holt was sure of it.